# Libraries in the Tech Age (ListenIllinois)


I love libraries, and I practically grew up in one. Whenever my mother
didn’t know where I was, she would call the kind librarians at [Hamar
Public
Library](http://www.hamar.kommune.no/hamar/www/site/forsiden/bibliotek/category.php?categoryID=312)
([the white
building](http://hamar.clickwalk.no/images/hamar/1/1/6l.jpg)), and
they’d usually found me in a comfortable couch reading a book. I knew
them all by name, and I still drop by once in a while, when I’m back
home, and they all remember me. Whenever I travel, I love visiting
libraries - some of my favourite ones include the [Oslo University
Library](http://www.ub.uio.no/english/aboutorg/organisation.html)
([picture](http://www.statsbygg.no/aapentrom/arkiv/nr2_2002/gfx/store_bilder/uio_biblioteket_446x437.jpg))
, [Helsinki City Library](http://www.lib.hel.fi/?_lang_id=EN)
([picture](http://pandora.lib.hel.fi/ulkomaalaiskirjasto/images/ulk_s4.jpg))
and [Malmoe City Library](http://www2.malmo.stadsbibliotek.org/)
([picture](http://www2.mah.se/internat/0304/Foton/library1.JPG)). The
[Robart’s Library](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/robarts/) at [the
University of Toronto](http://www.utoronto.ca)
([picture](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/11/Robarts_corner_750px.jpg))
is not all bad either.

I recently came across the blog of [the Shifted
Librarian](http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com), a modern tech-savvy
librarian who amongst others led me to read about
[ListenIllinois](http://www.listenillinois.org/), which is a totally rad
project. It basically works like this: you browse a selection of digital
audiobooks online, choose a few that you’d like to listen to, and take
the list to the librarian. He/she quickly downloads the files to an
[mp3-player](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3), and hands it to you.
Bike home, mow the lawn, cook - all while listening to your audiobook.
Within minutes of your “handing them in” at your library, they become
available to users at other participating libraries (yes, only one user
can check out the same book simultaneously). They are appearantly
working on making it work with patrons’ own mp3-players.

It’ll be exciting to see what other ideas and projects can come out of
libraries as they meet the dual threats/opportunities of emerging
techonology - will libraries be reduced to mere internet cafes for the
masses (already an important project to increase access), or will they
add new and exciting services that we haven’t even started to think up?
Check out [Negroponte](http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/)’s words on
the [future of
books](http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED4-02.html), the
group blog [the Handheld
Librarians](http://www.handheldlib.blogspot.com/) and another
[librarian](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/librarian)’s blog [walking
paper](http://www.walkingpaper.org/).

Stian